Monday, December 17, 2012

NRA Invokes Radio Silence

On Dec. 14, the day an armed citizen killed 26 unarmed women and children at a Connecticut elementary school, the NRA's Twitter account
went silent. It has not tweeted since. Meanwhile, its Facebook page has
disappeared, along with those 1.7 million "likes." Navigating to www.facebook.com/nationalrifleassociation now redirects to the Facebook homepage.

Some have accused the organization of cowardice for taking
down the Page and ceasing to tweet. However, this crisis-management
strategy may be succeeding. It’s prevented creating a centralized place
under the NRA banner where perspectives of its independent supporters
could have been taken as its own. The last thing the NRA wants is to be
characterized as sharing an extremist or offensive position posted by
someone who doesn’t speak for it or the rest of its fans. Other brands
and organizations might follow the NRA’s lead by retreating from social
media when they face times of crisis.

Silence in the face of tragedy is the NRA's modus operandi, as Buzzfeed's Andrew Kaczynski points out.
But taking its Facebook page offline may be a first. The question now
is how long it will have to wait before resuming its posts and tweets
about giveaways and gun-related news stories. My guess is it could be a
while.